DELAWARE DEMOCRATS GO NATIONAL

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

Delaware Democrats on Saturday elected an
establishment slate of delegates, heavy on elected
officials and members of Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's
administration, to send to their party's national
nominating convention this summer in Boston.

This was not a surprise. The reason that seasoned
politicians got that way is they know how to count
votes.

The delegation was selected in Dover during a
surprisingly collegial convention, considering what was
at stake. Because size matters, Delaware is allotted
only 23 out of 4,325 national delegates, and seven of
them are automatic super-delegates like Gov. Minner and
U.S. Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Thomas R. Carper,
guaranteed a seat because of their positions.

It meant there were only 16 openings for some of the
most coveted credentials in politics -- as participants
in a great assembly that may not have much to say about
the nomination anymore but still showcases the party and
becomes for four days the center of the political
universe. Besides, it is fun.

"People ask me, why do we go through this?" said
Richard H. Bayard, the state party chairman. "Delegate
positions are scarce. They are a badge of honor, and
they are difficult to obtain."

There was relief and excitement for those who did.
After the Sussex County caucus voted to send Lee Ann
Walling to Boston, she walked around the Dover Sheraton
Inn & Conference Center collecting hugs as she repeated,
"I'm a delegate!"

Democracy is not cheap. Delegate expenses are
expected to run about $2,000.

The convention opened with a video of John F. Kerry,
the Massachusetts senator who has the presidential
nomination clinched, and a lineup of speakers emphatic
about driving George W. Bush and the Republicans out of
the White House.

State Treasurer Jack A. Markell, for example, bashed
Bush by quoting a college professor who called the
president's economic policy a mantra of "cut taxes,
raise spending and screw the future."

Markell also predicted a change in foreign policy
that played to the hometown crowd. "Perhaps working with
Secretary of State Joe Biden, he is going to help our
country join the community of nations," he said.

Then the convention went to work to allocate
delegates, based on the results of Delaware's
presidential primary on Feb. 3. It had to select 14
delegates for Kerry, one delegate for Alfred C. "Al"
Sharpton and one delegate unpledged to any candidate. It
also had to fashion a delegation based on gender equity,
diversity and that old Delaware stand-by of geography --
upstate, downstate and the city of Wilmington.

The Wilmington caucus voted for Councilman Norman M.
Oliver, who ran Sharpton's state campaign, as Delaware's
lone Sharpton delegate and gave its other delegate slot
to Marilyn J. Doto, a city Democratic vice chair.

The New Castle County caucus elected four delegates:
James F. Hussey Jr., the party's state vice chairman;
Emily Falcon, a University of Delaware graduate student
who is a legislative fellow; Judith A. O'Brien, who
works in Minner's Wilmington office; and state Rep. John
J. Viola.

The Sussex County caucus voted for Blaine J. Breeding
of the Young Democrats and Walling, who works in the
Delaware Economic Development Office.

Once those 10 delegates were selected, they voted to
fill the six remaining slots. Wilmington Council
President Theodore Blunt became the unpledged delegate.
The other openings went to: state Sen. Patricia M.
Blevins; Margaret A. Conner, who works on Minner's
staff; Chipman L. Flowers Jr., a Wilmington lawyer;
state Sen. Margaret Rose Henry; and Lawrence Smith, who
was the community affairs director for former Wilmington
Mayor Daniel S. Frawley.